A blog for information on good indian movies with focus on parallel cinema.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Uthara

This is an interesting movie.Just plain narration, it has realistic characters and a nice climax.Nothing great about the movie, just a simple story told in a beautiful way.After watching the movie i felt as if i just finished reading a novel.It is just nice to see that the malayalam cinema industry has so much variety.so many types of movies are taken.It provides avenues for main stream, parallel cinema and these kinds of in betweens too.

Uthara is a god woman in a village.She comes from a family of god woman called "Thozhi"(friend to god).During the temple festival a "thozhi" is supposed to be with the god to keep her company.She sits in the inner sanctum of the temple and talks to the idol for 4 days.They are looked as demi god's by the villagers and when the village medicine man is not able to cure the patients he sends them to her.

The movie starts with people trying to find the way to the temple which is situated in midst of a forest.The "thozhi", Uthara is in the tmeple with the god.People talk about how her daughter is going to succeed her extra.

Uthara's husband is a poor carpenter who earns his living making kitchen utensils.Vijayaragavan becomes the village landlord by killing his rich uncle and marrying his aunt.He is a womanizer who has an eye on uthara.Lal is a sweet seller who lives with 2 prostitutes.The village revears and helps uthara but hates lal because of their different moral standings.

Uthara's borrows money from vijayaragavan for her sisters marriage on her mother's insistence.She keeps that as a secret as her husband does not like borrowing money from others.vijayaragavan uses this opportunity to visit her in the nights in the pretext of asking for money.uthara keeps mum as she does not want to tell everyone about their financial dealings.Eventhough she stop's vijayaraghavan's advances.people start talking about vijayaraghavan's frequent visits and he also tells various stories to people to make them beleive that there is a relation between them.

The God woman falls in the eyes of the villagers.village men start making jokes and indirect references on Uthara's relationship, to her husband.He beleives everything and tries to kill vijayaraghavan.His attempt fails, he just stabs and runs away from the village.

Time for the next years festival comes.Uthara decorates her house and makes preparation for the temple people to take her to be the "Thozhi".The village waits , but nobody comes.The temple people choose uthara's sister rather than her that year.Lal taking pity on her asks her to help him in his sweet buisness.So now she goes with her daughter and stays with the prostitutes.

The god's friend becomes a friend of prostitutes now.One day vijayaraghavan tries to rape uthara's daughter.The villagers outraged by it gather to beat him up.He escapes, but the villagers get to know that uthara is innocent and it was all vijayaraghavan's fault.

The next year's festival soon follows and the temple people again come asking for uthara's daughter to be the thozhi.She first refuses ,as she does not want to go through all that her mother has gone through.But later agrees after her mother persuades her.Vijayaraghavan comes to rape the girl again in the temple when she is with the god.Uthara comes there and kills him.

The villager talk about how foolish they where in accusing uthara and now they now have to face the wrath of god because of that.They also decide that they should do something to avoid it.

****** spoiler***

Uthara after spending her jail term is back.She comes straight to the temple.So many things have changed since then.It is no more a remote temple.It is a temple bustling with activites filled with shops etc.She finds that the temple shops are selling a unique Dhupatta that only she used to wear.She goes in to see foreigners and lots of devotees inside the temple.She first visits the main deity and she finds another sanctum and big crowd nearby.She goes to see what it is, she negotiates her way with the large crowd to get a glimpse of the idol in that temple.There Drapped in her favorite Dhupatta there is a statue of Uthara herself.

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A nice movie which didn't have extra scenes.A clean story told in a clean way.It has got 2 tamil songs, yes tamil songs as the prostitutes are tamils.Movies is directed by Sanal Kallathil.